Recently, development of light-sensitive color photographic materials having enhanced sensitivity, sharpness and color reproduction property have strongly been demanded.
As means to improve sharpness, use of a DIR compound, or a development inhibitor releasing compound, which releases a development inhibitor upon reaction with an oxidation product of a color developing agent, is known. And it is well known in the art that improvement in the color reproduction is attained by the edge effect, by incorporating a DIR compound in the emulsion. However, in these DIR compounds, there was a problem that the development inhibitor diffuses into the processing solution from the light-sensitive photographic material and accumulates in it. As the result, the processing solution becomes to bear development inhibiting
Couplers to solve this problem, various attempts have been made as disclosed in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publications No. 57-151944(1982), No. 58-205150(1983), No. 60-218644(1985), No. 60-221750(1985), No. 61-11743(1986) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,012.
These couplers have development inhibiting property when released from the coupling position of the coupler, and after being effused into a processing solution, they are decomposed into compounds which have no influence on the photographic property. They are couplers having a releasing group of such nature, it is actually the case when a large amount of light-sensitive material containing this type of coupler is processed, desensitization and contamination of the processing solution were improved by the use of this coupler, however, light-sensitive materials comprising the above-mentioned coupler tends to cause increase of fog and deterioration in sensitivity, image sharpness and color reproduction. Moreover, considering the property as a coupler per se, edge effect and inter-image effect of this type of couplers are not yet sufficient.